Namratha Kasalanati
 
Namratha Kasalanati (she/her) draws from fantasy, history, and mythology to create cross-cultural narratives filled with wonder and exploration. Hailing from the Bay Area, her work aims to bring attention to the diverse musical traditions around the world, focusing on the intersections between Western and Indian classical music. Some of her notable composition teachers have been Donald Crockett, Camae Ayewa (Moor Mother), Brian Head, and Veronika Krausas. She has also studied conducting with Sharon Lavery and orchestration with Frank Ticheli, Juan Pablo Contreras, and Mark Weiser. Beyond the classical sphere, she has composed for fifteen short films, one of which was screened at the Ojai Film Festival in 2023.
 
Namratha is currently pursuing her Bachelor of Music in Composition and a Bachelor of Science in Economics/Mathematics at the University of Southern California. As an economics student, she loves to examine how economics can help push for social change and intersect with public policy. Outside of class, she is the treasurer and music coordinator for USC’s Musical Theatre Repertory, a research assistant with the Security and Political Economy Lab (SPEC), and a research intern with the Boulanger Initiative, highlighting the compositions of women and gender-marginalized composers. She is a trained Bharatanatyam dancer, and is working towards her Arangetram (debut performance) in June 2025. In her spare time, she loves to read fantasy novels, triple jump, and enjoy a pack of Sour Skittles (or Gummy Clusters) every now and then.
 
 
Anna Heflin
 
Anna Heflin is a composer and writer who constructs high-octane, humorous, and sensual worlds with non-linear narratives that thrive on musical and psychological fragmentation. Whether writing a symphony or a staged literature-inspired solo opera for an instrumentalist, she is drawn to the unexpected and channels her highly imaginative virtuosic visions into complex characters and unorthodox narrative arcs that often integrate text and staging. Her long-term collaborations with individual artists and organizations developed over years of working as a freelance violist are central to her process and her core values include trust, risk taking, experimentation, play, open communication, and creative problem solving.
 
Her compositions do not fit neatly into a box and neither does she – she is invigorated by approaching music from every angle and can be found writing program notes for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, giving academic lectures, hosting radio shows, leading roundtable discussions, and running her journal Which Sinfonia. Recent performances include the world premiere of Symphony No. 993 (2024) for the Buffalo Philharmonic as part of June in Buffalo, the world premiere of a new work for Canticum Ostrava as part of Ostrava Days 2023, and “To Elvedon” as part of Rochester Fringe Festival 2023. From March 20-22 2025 Experiments in Opera is producing “The INcomplete Cosmicomics” — Heflin’s opera for vocalizing cellist Aaron Wolff and looper at The Tank in NYC on a double bill with a solo opera by Jason Cady.
 
Heflin received her B.M. in viola performance in 2015 from University of California Santa Barbara, where she studied with Helen Callus. She graduated with her M.M. in viola performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 2017. She is currently pursuing her Doctorate in music composition at USC’s Thornton School of Music, where she is working with faculty members Ted Hearne, Camae Ayewa (Moor Mother), and writer Aimee Bender.
 
annaheflin.com
 
 
David Hernandez
 
David Hernandez is a composer and classical guitarist whose work spans film, concert music, and interdisciplinary collaborations. Recently, he scored the feature-length horror film Our Happy Place (2024), an official selection at the 2024 Dancing with Films NY Film Festival and the 2025 Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival. His concert works have been performed by ensembles such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Lyris Quartet, Sandbox Percussion, and the USC Thornton Symphony. David is also an advocate for the arts, co-founding the Jazz on Main Street concert series and serving as orchestra manager for the newly founded San Gabriel Symphony. He is pursuing a double major in Composition and Classical Guitar Performance at the University of Southern California.
 
 
Estevan Olmos
 
Estevan Olmos graduated with a B.A. in music composition from California State University, Fresno and is now continuing his graduate studies at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music. He was born in Fresno, California and graduated with a B.A. in music composition from California State University, Fresno and is currently studying at the University of Southern California for his M.M. composition degree. His wide ranging experience as a composer, percussionist and first generation Mexican-American results in music that seeks to surprise and delight the listener, while subverting their expectations. His new found sound also focuses on the innovations and lineage of sound within and outside musical traditions. By drawing upon the continuum of the world’s expansive drum traditions, Estevan is able to create rhythmic and melodic worlds that hold more meaning than simply being a “groove.” These aspects find their way into Estevan’s work to highlight the importance of rhythm as not just a musical aspect but as culture, expression and history.
 
 
Kai Kubota-Enright
 
Kai Kubota-Enright is a composer/performer based in Los Angeles. Her musical output encompasses a variety of works for both concert and film, as well as contributions to various interdisciplinary projects. Her music primarily focuses on the relationship between sound and spatial environments, both natural and human-made, as well as how these various elements interact with personal memories and subjectivities; drawing from a variety of western and Japanese influences. In her performances she creates meditative, atmospheric spaces—often incorporating improvisational, electronic, and site-specific elements. She has also created mixes and performed for NTS and dublab radio, exploring postwar Japanese avant-garde art collectives, early and obscure tape / electronic music, transgender voice therapy, and the patterns of Japanese cicada calls accompanied with voice, synth improvisation, and piano.
 
She has been commissioned by the London Sinfonietta through the 2022 ROSL Composition Award and is currently a finalist for the 2025 Graham Sommer Competition for Young Composers, commissioned for Montréal based Ensemble Paramirabo. In the past she has won the SOCAN Foundation Young Composer Award for her electroacoustic music.
 
 
Bakhari S. Nokuri
 
Bakhari S. Nokuri is an African-American composer, producer, and drummer based in Los Angeles. Originally from Howard County, Maryland, he draws much of his inspiration from the music of Baltimore and Washington, D.C., where he spent many weekends growing up. As a creator of symphonic, jazz, and R&B works, Bakhari seeks to blend genres to forge new sounds while uplifting the communities around him.
 
In 2024, he revitalized his family’s benefit concert series, the Nokuri Foundation’s Night of Hope, leading his own big band to share stories of his Cameroonian and Black heritage through music. All proceeds from the event are donated to Ray-Est Primary School in Limbe, Cameroon.
 
Bakhari is the recipient of the 2024 James E. Croft Grant for Emerging Wind Band Composers, an honorable mention for the 2024 ASCAP Morton Gould Award, and the winner of the 2023 National Young Composers Challenge for Orchestra.
 
https://nokurimusic.com/home

The King, the Lute and the Elephant
Namratha Kasalanati
 
The King, the Lute, and the Elephant is inspired by the Sanskrit play Swapnavasavadatta and its prequel written by Bhasa (c. 3rd century CE). This tale features a king named Udayana, known for his ability to charm elephants with his captivating lute performance. One day, as he greets the sunrise in the forest, he notices a beautiful white elephant in the distance, and wanders away from his guards. Suddenly, enemy soldiers jump out from the belly of the elephant and take the king captive.
 
Held in the enemy king Pradyota’s court, Udayana is forced to share the secrets of charming elephants with the enemy king’s daughter, Princess Vasavadatta. What starts out as an uncomfortable relationship eventually blossoms into love. Eventually, with Vasavadatta’s assistance, and some clever tricks with precious metals, Udayana is able to escape and return to his kingdom. Udayana and Vasavadatta are married and they live happily ever after.
 
Visiting India as a child, I would immerse myself in the storybooks and mythological tales my grandparents would share with me. As I grew into composing, those stories became the inspirations for my musical works. I cannot imagine my musical identity without my roots in the music and culture of my home, and I strive to blend that with my American upbringing and training in the Western musical tradition. I was drawn to this story because it embodies the message of connection across differences, which is particularly relevant in today’s polarized world. Throughout this piece, I incorporate Carnatic (South Indian Classical) ragas, and draw rhythmic influence from Bharatanatyam dance and South Indian folk styles. At the same time, I feature Western instruments, orchestrational techniques, and harmonic progressions. By blending these two worlds, I hope this work can comment on the power of unity, collective humanity, and connection across divides.
 
–Namratha V. Kasalanati
 
 
Einmal ist keinmal
Anna Heflin
 
“‘Einmal ist keinmal,’ says Tomáš to himself. What happens but once, says the German adage, might as well not have happened at all. If we have only one life to live, we might as well not have lived at all.” ― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
 
Once is never, Einmal ist keinmal. The Unbearable Lightness of Being struck me deeply because it raises the question of what qualifies as “once.” Plot points, such as Tomáš’ affair, shift irrevocably when told from the viewpoint of Tomáš, from his lover Sabina, his wife Tereza. His affair repeats in the book literally, as well as being obsessed over in the churning minds of the characters. Time does not work linearly and the novel is not driven by unfolding of plot in a traditional sense – it is about observing the repercussions of choices and how they affect an entire group of people. Einmal ist keinmal takes this question as its impetus with recurring melodies and motivic ideas that appear in shifting circumstances. Long lines and interruptions are layered, orbiting and recontextualizing.
 
–Anna Heflin
 
 
Cascades
David Hernandez
 
Cascades, as its name suggests, explores the musical implications of “cascading” pieces of material. I started this piece when I was on a plane on my way to visit El Salvador for the first time. On that ride, I was listening to Takashi Yoshimatsu’s And The Birds Are Still… Op. 72, which became a major source of inspiration throughout the writing of this work. Cascades is written almost as a direct homage to that work by Yoshimatsu.
 
–David Hernandez
 
 
A Reverie in Rhythm and Memory
Estevan Olmos
 
A Reverie in Rhythm and Memory is meant to provoke a feeling of nostalgia for one’s own childhood and some of the music they might have listened to during that time. These feelings of nostalgia often come with vague memories of what these soundworlds might have been like. For me, this soundworld includes the music from early 2000’s Pixar movies and the Mexican regional music that my parents would play at 7:00 am on a Saturday morning or during the car ride. The music unveils itself like a fragmented memory to emulate the frustrating feeling of trying to remember a “thing” but being unsure of what it is exactly you are trying to remember. Through this composition, I hope to invite the listener to reflect on their own memories of childhood, to feel the joy, the nostalgia, and the emotional resonance of the music that might accompany their own reverie.
 
–Estevan Olmos
 
 
memory of invisible rivers
Kai Kubota-Enright
 
In Tokyo, the tapestry of rivers and waterways once integral to the region have long been concealed by concrete. My grandfather was born near Nihonbashi, which was once a scenic bridge looking out over the water, but when I visited it with him 90 years later I found a polluted, stagnant reservoir and a bridge marred by a giant highway overpass built during the 1964 Olympics. Despite this increasing loss of generational memory and culture, just underneath the feet of pedestrians flows the water of many forgotten rivers. I think about the memorie of this water, and the way that it flows invisible and soundless to us. What sound would it make, if we could hear it?
 
–Kai Kubota-Enright
 
 
ROSE-COLORED LENSES
Bakhari S. Nokuri
 
Rose-Colored Lenses draws its name from the idiom “rose-colored glasses,” which refers to someone viewing the world with an overly optimistic, often unrealistic perspective. Changing “glasses” to “lenses” suggests to me that this sense of optimism and delusion is not something easily controlled or toggled—much like the difference between glasses and contact lenses—or perhaps it was never truly within their control at all.
 
As I continue to grow, I learn more about the harsh realities of the world. Removing the rose-colored lenses isn’t always easy. Rose-Colored Lenses is a song for those coming to terms with difficult truths in their lives, capturing the journey of confronting and accepting these realities as they are. Like a rose, life may have its thorns, but it is still a beautiful and extraordinary thing to witness as it blossoms.
 
–Bakhari S. Nokuri